"Right from the introduction of his dramatis personae, Thurber lets us know that we’re in for just about the most unusual soap opera we could ever hope to follow. Set in and around the fictional environs of Volcano Park, the story in this wildly imaginative graphic novel presents us with a world of creosote addicts, sushi chef assassins, and mice couriers that can go wherever cellphones can’t. It’s a world where one’s love of trees might actually end in marriage, and where great matters or, at least, “ethnomusicological” questions are resolved by banjo contests. The story, not surprisingly, is a maze of interconnected narratives, but despite the dozens of characters we meet, the maze is a blast to follow. Heavy on humor and social satire, Thurber’s story constantly surprises, whether it’s the appearance of a floating Charlie Chaplin head, a killer musical note, or two research biologists working on a temporal distortion of the sex act. Thurber’s at his best experimenting with a wide array of visual techniques none of which get tiresome revealing an artist and storyteller who is wonderfully inventive."

- Publishers Weekly, October 24, 2011

Matthew Thurber: 1-800-MICE

Published by PictureBox

1-800-MICE is Matthew Thurber's comic book anthropological study of the imaginary city of Volcano Park: a cross between Thomas Pynchon, Robert Altman and J.R.R. Tolkien. Over the course of the story we meet Peace Punk, a punker on the verge of a bourgeois lifestyle; Tom Chief, a beat cop with an identity crisis; and Groomfiend, a daffy creature who leads the narrative. The serial has earned Thurber rave reviews from, among others, cartoonist Ben Katchor, who writes: “Matthew Thurber has singlehandedly revived the Surrealist program of revolutionary politics through dreamwork. What more can you ask for in a comic-book?” This edition collects five issues of 1-800-MICE, plus 48 pages of new material.

Featured image is a detail from one panel of 1-800-MICE.

PRAISE AND REVIEWS

Heeb Magazine

Jeff Newelt

This intricately epic, epically absurd fantasy is set in Volcano Park, a setting that in terms of kooky characters rivals H.R. Pufnstuf’s Living Island. Talking trees, messenger mice, sinister dentists and hermaphrodite hippies abound. This ain’t no stream of consciousness, more like gushing dam-busting river. One of a bazillion subplots involves an effort to revise history to read that the banjo was created in Scotland. How? By planting fake YouTube videos that insert banjos into historical scenes featuring Highland folk heroes. As nutty as this all sounds, its a remarkably readable hyper-imaginative ride.

As a cartoonist, Thurber’s work reveals a tension between complex but traditional narrative structures, boldly avant-garde visual storytelling, and the overall sensibilities of a gag cartoonist. 1-800-MICE is the culmination of many years of exploration in comics and is hilarious, absurd, thought-provoking, compelling, and pointedly satirical all at once. It’s a sprawling epic that leaps between the narratives of a number of different characters before drawing them together in unusual ways, depicting life in a vibrant, tense Volcano City set in a fantasy world where trees are sentient, banjo-playing gangsters hire sushi-chef assassins, and both consciousness and identity are highly fluid concepts.

STATUS: Out of print | 00/00/00

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NEW RELEASE! We recommend Agnes Martin, the definitive monograph, published to accompany the traveling retrospective currently on view at Tate Modern.

1-800-MICE is Matthew Thurber's comic book anthropological study of the imaginary city of Volcano Park: a cross between Thomas Pynchon, Robert Altman and J.R.R. Tolkien. Over the course of the story we meet Peace Punk, a punker on the verge of a bourgeois lifestyle; Tom Chief, a beat cop with an identity crisis; and Groomfiend, a daffy creature who leads the narrative. The serial has earned Thurber rave reviews from, among others, cartoonist Ben Katchor, who writes: “Matthew Thurber has singlehandedly revived the Surrealist program of revolutionary politics through dreamwork. What more can you ask for in a comic-book?” This edition collects five issues of 1-800-MICE, plus 48 pages of new material.